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Qualcomm cancels its own 4G system

Qualcomm gives up on ultramobile broadband in favor of the competing GSM …

Ultramobile broadband (UMB) is ultra dead. In a month in which technologies and companies appear to be dropping like flies, Qualcomm said they would stop work on its fourth-generation (4G) network technology UMB, and shift efforts to the GSM-based Long-Term Evolution (LTE) standard. UMB speeds could have hit 275 Mbps downstream; LTE's best recent practical tests show rates of over 100 Mbps.

This was not unexpected, as DSLReports.com noted, as no major carrier had committed to UMB. Qualcomm's U.S. stalwarts, Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel, had chosen LTE and WiMax, respectively, for their 4G networks. Reuters reported Qualcomm's decision.

Qualcomm is a powerhouse of cellular phone standards and patents, having developed CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) technology used by Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel in the U.S., and a variety of carriers worldwide. GSM has vastly more marketshare, however, with over 3 billion subscribers using the technology around the globe, according to the GSM trade group; CDMA users number about 700 million, says the standard's association.

With third-generation (3G) cellular networks, which mix data and voice, Qualcomm had kept parity with its EVDO (Evolution Data Only) protocol, which was widely adopted by CDMA carriers. However, its 4G approach switched to OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access), the same underlying approach to spectrum efficiency, per-user provisioning, and multipath reflection that both LTE and WiMax employ.

UMB's break with CDMA—although coupled with built-in backwards compatibility—may have given carriers the push to switch to the juggernaut that is LTE. LTE is still considered a couple of years away from leaving the lab, if not longer. WiMax, deployed in small installations around the world, is still seen as largely unproven. That should change soon with the approval of the Sprint/Clearwire merger that will push WiMax to dozens of U.S. cities by the end of 2009.